Neil Lennon comes full circle at Rugby Park as Celtic close in on SPL title

Neil Lennon has kept his own counsel for a fortnight but on Saturday he will
certainly reflect on the 175 days that have separated Celtic’s two league
visits to Rugby Park – and brought him from the edge of the managerial abyss
to the brink of his first championship as the man in charge at Parkhead.

With only 12 minutes remaining of their meeting with Kilmarnock on Oct 15 they were 3-0 down and heading for what looked like the end of Lennon’s brief tenure, but a rally inspired by two goals from Anthony Stokes saw them salvage an unlikely point on an afternoon when Rangers were later held to a 1-1 draw at home to St Mirren.

That was the start of an unbeaten domestic run of 26 games before the sequence was ended by Kilmarnock in last month’s Scottish League Cup final at Hampden Park. Now, because of one of those quirks of scheduling that so frequently adds piquancy to the fixture list, another draw at Rugby Park will be sufficient to send the SPL title to the east end of Glasgow for the first time in four years.

Celtic actually fell further behind Rangers in the championship race after that astonishing day in Ayrshire – they were 15 points adrift when they travelled to play Motherwell on Nov 6 – but the consistency and character displayed between then and the Hampden defeat on March 18 saw them overtake the defending champions before the Ibrox side were deducted 10 points for going into administration.

Lennon was in self-imposed purdah from the media again – although he was cheerful enough when encountered in the Celtic Park foyer – and it was left to his first team coach, Alan Thompson, to retrace the journey that has brought the Hoops to the threshold of a memorable triumph.

“Ironically the day we were 3-0 down to Kilmarnock and came back to nick a point I was going back to Newcastle with my dad after the game and we stopped at a garden centre in Carlisle,” said Thompson.

“After the coffee me dad said, ‘Rangers have dropped points’ and I thought, ‘this could be a turning point today’. We got a point and they dropped points and from then on it just kept turning.”

Thompson also confirmed that Lennon knew that his fledgling managerial career had come close to calamity. Asked what his friend and former Hoops team-mate had said to him at full-time on Oct 15, Thompson replied: “ 'I was nearly ------- walking there!' It was along those lines!”

There have, inevitably, been suggestions that this title will be tarnished by the sanctions imposed on Rangers but Thompson, justifiably, was having none of it. “I think it’s some achievement regardless of what people say – pundits talking about tainted titles and all that,” he said.

“We were 15 points behind, so to turn it around the way we have, regardless of the 10-point deduction, I think is credit to the club. It will not be tainted for us.

“It’s been a long season, 91/2 months we’ve been back in training since the middle of June, so if we do it, it will be fantastic and everyone will deserve credit from the manager down to the backroom staff, kit men, everyone. A lot of work has gone in at the club.

“I think everyone is so pleased for Neil – players, staff, everyone. If it happens tomorrow, then great – we will all celebrate it with him because he deserves it.

“He has been through a lot. He puts in an awful lot of hard work that people don’t see, whether it is going to games, watching players or going to watch kids coming through the system at Celtic.”

If matters go Celtic’s way at Rugby Park – where three of the four stands will be filled by their supporters in what will be a money-spinning day for the host club – one man will greet the achievement with relief as much as celebration. Kris Commons, whose Celtic career began in splendid form when he moved from Derby in January 2011, has endured a stuttering campaign marred by injury and uneven form.

Nevertheless, he has relished the unending drama played out on and off the field during his 14 months in Scotland, during which time Lennon was the target of mail bombs, death threats and physical assault at Tynecastle and Rangers have been enveloped in a crisis that threatens the club’s existence.

“It’s not like I came in and thought, ‘Listen, this never happens’. It’s what’s brilliant about playing in Scottish football. There’s always something to talk about that gets people ringing the radio stations.

“They’ll be doing that again tomorrow – talking about how we won the title, hopefully.”